Fignon Wonders if Drug Use Caused Cancer

Fignon Wonders if Drug Use Caused Cancer

France's Laurent Fignon was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last week. The two-time Tour champion is unsure whether drug use during his career played a role.

james startt

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June 14, 2009

Paris, France: Just one week ago Laurent Fignon sat quietly at a party celebrating the 50th birthday of an old friend, a soigneur from his racing days in the 1980s. Few took note of his reserved mood. After all, the rider that twice won the Tour de France, but is best known for losing that race by eight seconds to Greg LeMond in 1989, is often described as taciturn and timid.

But when he announced on Thursday that he was suffering from advanced stages of Pancreatic cancer, the 48-year old Frenchman was again the focus of the media attention he prefers to avoid. The cancer news was compounded by the fact that the opening of his soon-to-be published book, "When We Were Young and Careless," reveals his use of performance-enhancing drugs during his career. Some, including Fignon, have speculated there may have been a connection between the two. Fignon's doctors have ruled out that possibility.

Fignon was never a popular champion. In a survey during the 1989 Tour, a majority of the French hoped that LeMond would win the Tour instead of their own countryman. Fignon is also brutally honest, and he spoke of his cancer and his doping history without hesitation in recent interviews on national French radio and television.

"I'm not going to say no that it didn't play a role," Fignon said, speaking of his drug use, mostly in the form of cortisone. "But I didn't hold back any details of my drug use with my doctors and they said, 'It can't be that. That would be too simple.' A digestive cancer like mine is first about nutrition. The drugs we took were not ingested but injected."

Cortisone use was widespread in the 1980s, Fignon said. It was widely regarded as the drug of choice for cyclists before the advent of EPO in the early 1990s. "If there was a direct link with my cancer I think there would be a lot of other cyclists that would also be suffering from the same cancer," said Fignon.

Fignon has undergone chemotherapy since the cancer was detected a little over two weeks ago. The cancer is already in advanced stages. "They detected the cancer in the digestive tracks. They don't know the exact origins but it definitely is around the Pancreas."

Fignon says flatly. "I don't know how much time I still have to live. We don't know what is going to happen. But I'm optimistic."